Well hey there. It's been a while. Over christmas (which is another rambley topic by itself) I was busy with the festivities and the like. I was also actively job searching and getting organised to send off a CAO application as a mature student to do Computer Science in DIT as I feel it's as close to my carrier calling as I am going to get (what with being into nerdy gadgets and IT). I am also semi into photography as a hobby but have lacked the motivation to pursue it as of late. Alas, the job hunting didn't work out and am currently on social welfare which has taken a while to get used to. I have been attending Skeptics in the pub gatherings on a semi regular basis or when I can as it's good to get out of the house and also I've really kinna fallen into that social circle as skeptics tend to be into science and thus are kinna geeky/nerdy which means we tend to have a few things in common. And even if they're not then we at least have the pursuit of evidence based truth in common.
My dad is of the interpretation of late that the universe is a collective intelligence, it's all connected at the atomic and subatomic level and all somehow centred around carbon as that's the most readily bonded molecule. He saw a clip on YouTube there recently that showed Prof. Brian Cox heating a diamond with his and explaining that he was altering the atomic energy levels by heating them, he then went on to say that all the electrons in all the atoms in the diamond had to alter their state accordingly and not only that that every atom in the universe had to do so. Of course dad saw this as confirming his theory. He goes around talking about what is god and what is intelligence, any time this comes up. He'll argue that atoms and their electrons are god and intelligent and it's all interconnected. ANY way moving on. I get along with him grand until he cracks on about this stuff. He's retired and has a lot of time to think.
My mom on the other hand is a defensive catholic. By that I mean "...and why can't people believe this?" "don't people have the right to believe whatever they want?" "there's nothing wrong with it!". A bit of back story here. My grandmother (mom's mother) was a typical Irish catholic grandmother. Crucifixes around the house, holywater sponges, blessed herself and prayed every time she saw a church or a gaveyard, would say "holy mother save us" every time someone cursed or deaths were on the news... you know the type. Anyway mom took her mental deterioration and death very hard and I guess her holding onto the catholic concepts (even though she's not a practising catholic by any means) is her way of holding onto her memory of her mother and any argument that would lead her to think otherwise would be an insult to her memory of her mother and that she'd have to let go and move on. So broadly she supports my secular views as I can do and think what I like but if I try to "convert" her nooo then she gets defensive hence the "defensive catholic" label. I'd say she'd an atheist/secularist in denial but doesn't want to question it herself.
